


well, they'll pass you by

by eleanor_lavish



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Anonymous Sex, Canon Compliant, Friends to Lovers, Glory Hole, M/M, Realization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 07:16:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17762267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish
Summary: Jooheon knows all the good gossip in Starship, and he’s heard about this for a month or so now. That the hole is here. That on late nights, if you’re brave enough, desperate enough,hornyenough, you can slip down to the basement bathroom and stick your dick in this hole and maybe someone, somestranger, will jerk you off. Or, if you’re lucky, suck you off.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is, I think, going to be one of those fics that's porn/lots of feelings/porn. Part one is... very much porn.
> 
> Note that I am using Wonho and Shownu in this fic and not their given names. This is a canon-compliant fic, and I have literally never heard anyone call them anything else irl!
> 
> Thanks to oliviacirce for the beta and to quietellen for always being up for yelling about wonho with me and to bruce springsteen for the title. (oh yeah, i did that.)

The first domino is a comment about the backstage area of the venue in Dallas, on the second world tour. The green room has a poured concrete floor, and the walls have little cubbies in them, like stalls, with giant mirrors for doing hair and makeup. Every step, every laugh, echos and bounces off the walls and the floor. “It’s like trying to do scales in a bathroom,” Kihyun grumbles as they’re warming up, and the idea lodges in Jooheon’s head.

The second domino is the lollipop. There’s a bag of them in the green room, possibly left over from someone else’s rider. Minhyuk crows happily when he discovers them and pops one in his mouth, passing the bag around to the rest of the members. Jooheon takes one, and Changkyun, and Wonho, who laughs happily when he finds a strawberry one nestled near the bottom of the bag. It slowly stains his lips red, the bulb of it sticking obscenely out of his cheek. It’s a pretty sight, but also a pretty normal one. Jooheon knows later, gulping down air in the _actual_ bathroom of the venue, that by themselves, those two dominoes wouldn’t have meant anything at all. 

But the next two…

The third domino is a phrase, simple and heartfelt, and nothing they haven’t said to each other dozens of times. Shownu sits in a chair, his head tipped forward as Wonho stands behind him and massages his shoulder. Jooheon is a few feet away, watching Wonho grin around his lollipop, his thumbs digging deep enough that Shownu groans. “Fuck,” he says, “you’re so fucking good at that.” 

Wonho makes a _sound_. It’s a surprised, happy sound, probably the same breathy laugh he makes all the time when someone praises him, but this time it gets caught in his throat, the lollipop trapping the sound in his mouth so that it’s more like a low, happy moan. That sound, which Jooheon still remembers years later, is the fourth domino.

And suddenly they all line up.

Suddenly, the green room isn’t the green room anymore. It’s a dingy bathroom in the basement of the Starship training building in 2014, out of the way enough that only trainees who had been around a few years knew about it. It’s a good bathroom for escaping - from tyrannical choreographers or over-eager new recruits, or to have a cry, or sneak a smoke, or…

There are four stalls in the bathroom. The one closest to the wall is closed and locked; Jooheon can see feet under the partition, just a pair of basic white Nikes. The room is otherwise empty, and Jooheon stops in front of the sinks for a second, looking at his reflection in the mirror - the shock of dark hair under his cap, the spots of color high on his cheeks, the there-if-you’re-looking-for-it bulge in the front of his track pants. His heart is hammering in his chest, but otherwise there is no sound in the room. The guy in the last stall is just as quiet.

He takes a deep breath, then another one, then quickly opens the door of the third stall, going inside and closing and locking the door before he can second guess anything. It’s a totally normal bathroom stall save for one feature - a hole cut into the wall between his stall and the next, about 10cm in diameter and 90cm off the ground. Someone has put black duct tape over the edges of the ragged opening, and Jooheon almost laughs. It’s so surreal.

At nineteen, Jooheon is straddling the trainee line between up-and-coming and maybe-has-been. It means he knows everyone, talks to everyone, from the fresh-faced kids straight from middle school to the jaded hyungs who buy him beers and tell him he’s lucky he’s still cute. Jooheon knows all the good gossip in Starship, and he’s heard about this for a month or so now. That the hole is here. That on late nights, if you’re brave enough, desperate enough, _horny_ enough, you can slip down to the basement bathroom and stick your dick in this hole and maybe someone, some _stranger_ , will jerk you off. Or, if you’re lucky, suck you off. Jooheon had laughed it off the first few times, but the hyungs who told him about it all had the same high blush on their cheeks, and none of them could quite look him in the eye as they told him. So Jooheon had wondered if it was true, and then thought about it, and then thought about it _more_ , and then, _now_ , finally made his way to the basement, already half-hard from the _idea_ of it, and walked into the magical dick-sucking stall, and the hole is _real_. 

It’s real, and Jooheon is now painfully, achingly hard, and his heart is beating really, really fast, and he has no idea what comes next. He just stares at the hole - he can’t see anything about the person on the other side except that they’re wearing black. After a long minute where he is clearly not using the stall for its intended purpose, and the guy in the next stall isn’t either, Jooheon wonders if he missed something in all the stories he’s been told about what comes _next_. Does he just _whip his dick out and shove it through the hole_? What if it’s not some dude who wants to touch his dick? What if it’s like, a manager-sunbaenim who is just trying to take a nap away from all the annoying trainees? Jooheon knows for a _fact_ that if he wakes up a manager with his naked dick, he’s gone. He’s out. He’s basically consigning himself to waiting tables until he dies. 

He’s nearly worked himself into a panic with his manager theory when a finger appears at the edge of the hole. It makes a gentle circle all the way around, like it’s smoothing down the duct tape. It’s a nice, nondescript finger with well-kept nails, and it just lingers there for a long moment, waiting. Jooheon has this weird thought that, if he chickens out now, he might _disappoint_ the owner of this nice finger, who has been waiting here for who knows how long to… what? To touch Jooheon’s dick, that’s what.

He tugs down the waistband of his track pants and his underwear in one go, biting his lip hard as his dick bobs free. He strokes himself once, twice, his eyes still glued to that finger, and then slowly takes a shuffling step forward, then another one, until the tip of his dick is disappearing into this strange, crazy hole. 

The finger pulls back and, when Jooheon’s dick is all the way in, his whole torso pressed against the cold, grey metal of the wall, a hand slowly closes around it, warm and big and a little calloused. Jooheon exhales sharply, then clenches his jaw to keep any more sound from escaping. He presses his forehead to the wall, and closes his eyes, and just tries to remember to _breathe_.

It’s a good handjob - Jooheon’s been a trainee long enough to have had a decent handjob or two, and this one ranks pretty high. The hand isn’t afraid to play with his foreskin a little, isn’t shy about spreading Jooheon’s pre-cum down the shaft to make the movements smoother, hotter. Jooheon’s cheeks are on fire. But when the thumb plays with the crown of his dick, his face contorts with pleasure and Jooheon realizes that he kind of loves this, loves that he can make whatever weird sex faces he wants, because no one can _see_ him. The hand grips him tighter, hotter, and Jooheon can’t help the little moan that escapes like it’s been punched out of him. 

He hears a harsh exhale on the other side of the wall. He remembers with sudden, weird clarity that it’s not a random hand on the other side, it’s a person. A man. A man with nice fingers and white Nike sneakers, who has waited for his own stranger to appear, to do this strange, anonymous dance around something they both want, but can’t ever admit to wanting. He wonders if the other guys who’ve been here have thought about that, about what the guy on the other side of the wall is risking, about how much he must _want_ this to risk everything in this dank basement men’s room. Jooheon is intensely turned on, and terribly ashamed, and weirdly grateful to this guy all the same time. “It’s good,” he grits out, an affirmation, his voice a gravely whisper. The guy on the other side breathes again, loud enough that Jooheon can hear how shaky it is. Suddenly the hand is gone, and Jooheon runs hot-and-cold all over, sure he’s fucked it up by speaking, by shattering their quiet bubble.

But then he hears a rustling sound on the other side of the partition, the slide of fabric and a dull thud, and before he can piece it together, the hand is back but so is a wet heat that makes Jooheon gasp and shiver. “Oh,” he exhales, and his knees are like jello now, enough that Jooheon has to reach up and grasp the top of the partition to make sure he doesn’t fall over. 

Jooheon’s had a handful of handjobs in the past few years, but it never moved past that to this, to the feeling of his dick in someone’s mouth, the pull of a hand mild in contrast to the slide of a tongue - a _tongue!_ \- across the crown of his dick. So Jooheon doesn’t have much to compare it to, but he’s pretty sure this is a _good_ blowjob. The guy’s hand is still on the base of his dick, pulling in time with the movement of his head; the suction is enough to drive Jooheon a little insane, but not hard enough to make him come right away. His eyes are closed and his hands are gripping the top of the partition, and the sounds are muffled through the metal wall, and all Jooheon can do is just _feel it_. Just lose himself in the feeling of his dick sliding against the velvet skin of the guy’s tongue, the inside of his cheek, the jolts up his spine every time the guy’s hand twists just so and makes his dick spurt a little more pre-cum. It’s not long before his thighs are shaking too, his abs clenched in anticipation, sweat dripping down his armpits, his temple, his lower back. The guy has only been on his knees for a few minutes and Jooheon feels like he’s at the end of three hours of dance rehearsal.

He isn’t going to last. He knows this. He doesn’t want it to end, but… 

“Close,” he whispers, and it’s like the guy doubles down, his hand holding back Jooheon’s foreskin, his tongue going to fucking town on his crown. “Fuck,” he manages, rolling his forehead against the wall, chasing the coolness of the metal, “you’re so fucking good at this.”

The guy makes a _sound_ then, a bit like a moan and a bit like a laugh, like he’s _happy_ , like he’s fucking _thrilled_ that he could make Jooheon’s fucking _year_ with this spectacular blowjob. The sound vibrates through his dick right up through Jooheon’s stomach, and lodges in his throat. His mouth is watering, and he wonders if it’s really that good, the heat of another guy’s dick in your mouth, the weight of it, the _taste_. He feels his orgasm coming on fast, fast enough that all he can say is “fuck, fuck, sorry,” before he’s shooting his load in the guy’s mouth, shaking so hard the metal door bangs against the lock.

The wet heat disappears almost too fast; Jooheon hisses as the cold air rushes in over his spent dick, wet all the way down with spit and cum. He’s pretty sure the guy got some of it in his mouth before he pulled off, and that thought has him shivering again. He just leans against the wall for a moment, breathing hard. He can hear the guy breathing hard on the other side too, and another sound, slick and dirty and quick. _He’s jerking off_ , Jooheon thinks distantly. He’s heard so many guys jerk off in the last few years - too many boys, too many hormones, too many bunk beds in small bedrooms - that his first instinct is to tune it out, to give the guy some privacy. But Jooheon realizes with a start that the guy is probably jerking off _because of him_ , because he just swallowed some of Jooheon’s cum and he _liked it_. So he waits it out - for a few long breaths he just keeps his dick right where it is, on the other side of the bathroom stall, in the face of a stranger who just gave Jooheon one of the best orgasms of his life. He waits until he hears a the sound of skin-on-skin stop abruptly, then a shaky exhale. 

Jooheon takes a step back on wobbly legs. His dick looks remarkably the same for something that has just gone through a truly profound experience; he tucks it gingerly back into his track pants, wipes his sweaty hands on the front of his shirt, and opens the door. The room looks the same too, as does Jooheon, red cheeks and all, his reflection staring back at him from the mirrored wall. He can see the door to the fourth stall over his shoulder, the white Nikes still underneath. Jooheon washes his hands and dries them with a scratchy paper towel. The door doesn’t move. He takes a moment to check his hair. The door remains steadfastly _shut_. He pulls open the bathroom door and steps outside, letting it close slowly behind him. 

He thinks for a long moment about staying right here, still and quiet, until the guy in the fourth stall eventually comes out. But then he realizes he has no idea what he’d say. No idea what would happen then. What if it _is_ a manager? Or some guy from the makeup department? Or a fellow trainee who Jooheon would have to work with day after day after day? What would knowing his face accomplish? He got what he wanted out of the encounter - probably more. Definitely more. And remembering that sound the guy had made - that moan that was more like a thank you, that sound that makes Jooheon’s dick jump just remembering it - he thinks the guy did too. 

He heads back up to the studio.

He remembers the sound, though, days, weeks, even years later.

And suddenly, the dominoes all fall down.

Jooheon snaps back into the dressing room in Dallas with sickening clarity. Wonho is looking at him, his eyebrows knitted in concern, the damn lollipop still lodged in his cheek like… _Like._ He makes a stuttered excuse and ducks into the bathroom, splashing water on his face until his cheeks stop burning. 

It was Wonho. The guy in the white Nikes, the guy with the perfect mouth, the guy who’s been the object of Jooheon’s jerk-off fantasies since he was nineteen, was _Wonho_.


	2. Chapter 2

Jooheon has two options - never look at Wonho again, or try like hell to forget that he knows the feeling of Wonho’s mouth on his dick. Considering Monsta X has him under contract for a bunch more years and he and Wonho are on world tour at the moment, he figures he’ll start with the second one and see how it goes.

He makes it through the Dallas show by sheer force of will, then the interview day in Texas, then the Houston show; his sister and her family are there, and Jooheon focuses all of his time and attention on baby Olivia. Whenever he’s not holding her, there’s a thrum of anxiety running under his skin, so he holds her for hours until she falls asleep in his arms. The moment his family is gone the anxiety is a constant flow, rippling under his skin and around his lungs. He doesn’t sleep much in Texas.

The next day they travel to California. The flight to San Francisco is long enough that they fly first class on a big airline rather than take a small private plane. 

“Are you okay?” Minhyuk asks him softly as they gather in the fancy airport lounge until their flight boards. They’re sitting on a wide leather sofa. Wonho is across the room getting a beer from the bar. He laughs at something one of the managers says. Jooheon can hear him, but his eyes have been fixed firmly on the floor since he sat down.

“Fine,” Jooheon says. “Um, what seat are you in?” He’s been worried since they went through security that he’s going to be stuck sitting next to Wonho for this flight. He has literally no plan for how to survive that in his current state of _Wonho took my blowjob virginity, and I don’t think he has any idea_. 

Minhyuk leans over to paw through his giant carry-on. “Ah-ha,” he finally says, pulling his boarding pass out of a side compartment. “I’m in 5B.”

“Oh thank god.” Jooheon exhales and Minhyuk raises both eyebrows. 

“I hope that means you’re going to be _blessed_ by the pleasure of my company,” he says prissily.

“It actually does.” Jooheon shows Minhyuk his ticket with ‘5A’ printed on it, and laughs at his friend’s face of surprise. 

“Okay, now I know there’s something wrong with you,” Minhyuk replies, but he looks pleased. 

“I’m not feeling… great,” Jooheon tells him. It’s not an outright lie, and he knows that the makeup noonas are going to have a fit about how pale he is, about the dark circles under his eyes.   
“Oh noooo,” Minhyuk’s eyes go wide. “Do you think you’re getting sick?”

“Who’s getting sick?” Shownu asks, appearing like a phantom on Jooheon’s other side.

“I’m not - I’m sure it’s nothing,” he starts to backpedal, but then he has a flash of inspiration. “Though I should probably not be too close to any members, just in case.”

Shownu clearly hates the whole situation, but he reluctantly agrees, and gets a manager to swap seats with Minhyuk. He also procures three separate vitamin supplements from various members, all of whom give him worried looks. When Wonho catches his eyes, Jooheon feels his face go bright red, and he makes a dash for the men’s room where he hides until the flight begins to board.

It’s a little white lie, and he’ll tell them he’s back on his feet in a day or two, when he’s got this anxious thrumming out of his system. All he needs is a little bit of _space_.

*

Of course, the one who manages to not take the hint is Wonho, who shows up at his hotel room door the afternoon of their San Francisco show. Hyungwon is out shopping before they have to go to soundcheck, and Jooheon had been looking forward to some quiet time, but here is Wonho with a big grin and a bag of honest-to-god fresh kimchi and a dozen bowls of instant Korean ramyeon. “I asked the front desk and they said there was a specialty Asian grocery a few miles away, so I asked one of the managers to take me down there,” he announces, thrusting the bag into Jooehon’s arms. “I know that there’s nothing like good Korean food for fighting off a cold.” His smile is wide and warm, and he looks just a little proud of himself for being a good hyung. 

“Thanks,” Jooheon manages. Wonho is in ripped jeans and a soft black t-shirt, and his shoes are white - Adidas, not Nikes, but it’s enough to make Jooheon’s neck heat up. 

“Hey, you should rest. Let me come in and cook this up for you,” Wonho says gently. 

“No, that’s fine, I can manage,” Jooheon tells him, his eyes fixed on the carpet at their feet, Wonho’s stupid white sneakers next to Jooheon’s feet in their blue slippers. 

“I know, but just let hyung take care of you. Kihyun would be better at it, but I’m sure even I can’t mess up instant -”

As Wonho speaks, Jooheon feels like an _idiot_. Every single second that he hasn’t been actively avoiding thinking about Wonho and his hands and his mouth and his fucking Nikes he’s been _thinking about all of those things_. The faceless stranger in all the fantasies he’s had since his trainee days, most of them back in that dank bathroom with Jooheon on his knees this time, or the guy bent in half over the sinks as Jooheon fucks him from behind, has been replaced with Wonho, made all the more vivid with his soft hair and his wide smile and his giant biceps. He thinks about _Wonho_ , in the shower, drifting off to sleep, right now, with an arm full of his favorite food from home that Wonho got just to make him feel better. His skin is constantly prickling and his dick is constantly twitching and he’s fucking exhausted from trying to make his brain just _stop_.

“Just _stop_ ,” Jooheon grits out, because he’s absolutely not ready to be alone in a room with Wonho, not even a little bit. He tries not to notice that Wonho’s face falls, but he does. He tries to remember that this is for the best, that Wonho knowing that Jooheon knows about that bathroom stall is not going to make anything better. “I’m okay, hyung,” he adds, trying for a small smile and failing miserably. “Wouldn’t want you to get sick too.” He closes the door gently and rests his forehead against the inside for long time. 

*

By the time of the show that night, Jooheon has himself mostly back together. He’d finally shaken himself loose to give himself one hell of a pep talk about friendship and things in the past being in the past and all the stuff he’s worked so hard for and blah blah blah. Then he’d eaten two entire bowls of actually decent ramyeon, and he showed up at the venue ready to perform with his members. With his friends. With _Wonho_. He even manages to give Wonho a real smile and a thumbs up as they’re putting on their headsets. 

He’s nearly convinced himself that this will all be fine. That he’ll be able to put the genie back in the bottle and go back to just thinking of Wonho as a friend, a good hyung, a fellow member of his group, and not at all as a person Jooheon has imagined having sex with for literal years.

Then they hit the stage, and it all goes to shit.

The show is good - small, compared to their Asian shows, but the crowd is _into_ it. They know the words, even a lot of the Korean. And like most of the stops on the tour, the audience is mostly girls. But not entirely. Jooheon notices pockets of boys in the audience, of _men_. Grown men, some with tight t-shirts, some with beards, definitely older than Jooheon, older than Shownu. And they’re drinking beers and singing along and… watching. It’s enough to shift the show into new territory for Jooheon. Every time he’s front and center on stage, spitting raps, he can feel the different energy in the room, the rumbling timbre under the screaming girls as the men yell at him too. It’s a lot, almost too much, and Jooheon finds himself having to gulp down water between songs to try to cool himself down. 

He notices, too, that they yell even louder for Shownu, and for Minhyuk, and especially for Wonho. Every time he thrusts his hips they _roar_. Every time he says anything in English, grinning and stumbling a little over the words, they get louder, almost like they’re begging him to look at them. And he does. Wonho notices the shift too, Jooheon can tell by the way his hips turn liquid every time he’s center stage. 

And it’s become something of a fixture of the show by now, but Jooheon is still not prepared for it when the last song winds down and Minhyuk winds his arms around Jooheon from behind, and suddenly the crowd _erupts_ as Wonho slowly, slowly peels his shirt off. Minhyuk laughs maniacally and abandons Jooheon to wrap his arms around Wonho instead, his fingers covering Wonho’s nipples as the crowd loses its fucking mind. When Wonho whips his shirt into the audience, he aims it straight at the balcony where the loudest of the men are standing near the railing. 

Jooheon feels like he’s on fire. He feels like someone has got to notice the fact that he’s half-hard in his too tight pants. He feels it, this pull, this _want_ in the room. He knows these men want Wonho, and he knows now, far more than he did a week ago, that Wonho might want them _back_. It makes him dizzy, it makes him horny… but beyond anything it makes him want to _fight_ all these guys who think they could put their hands on Wonho, and that thought is enough to make him run hot as they stagger backstage. 

“Awesome show,” Changkyun crows, throwing his arm over Jooheon’s shoulder. 

“They were so into it!” Wonho grins at them, his whole chest still just _there_ , glistening and heaving. 

“They were so into _you_ ,” Hyungwon laughs. 

Wonho shoves at Hyungwon’s shoulder, his smile bright and wide. There’s a bead of sweat dripping down the back of his neck. Jooheon wants to lick it. Jooheon wants to push Wonho into the nearest empty room and pull his hair and lick his neck and _god damn it_ , he needs to get the fuck away from his group right now before he does something monumentally stupid.

“Hyung, do you know where the cars are?” he asks Shownu, his voice pitched low. 

Shownu shakes his head, and that worry frown is back. “Are you feeling okay?”

“No,” Jooheon exhales. 

“You were going too hard out there - you can’t overdo it when you’re sick,” Shownu says to him, one big hand squeezing his shoulder. 

“Right, you’re right,” he nods, already scanning for a manager. His gaze keeps skittering over Wonho, who has yet to put on a _fucking_ shirt. 

“Hey,” Shownu says to the whole assembled group, quiet but firm. “Jooheon needs to get back to the hotel.” 

“Oh, baby,” Minhyuk frowns and hooks a sweaty arm around his neck. “You do feel warm,” he notes, pressing his hand to Jooheon’s cheek.

Kihyun rolls his eyes. “We all feel warm, we just danced for an hour.”

“I’ll be fine,” Jooheon manages, but he’s distracted as Wonho’s attention swings to him. He sees it happening in slow motion, like a car crash - shirtless, sweaty Wonho reaching out like he’s going to smooth the hair back off Jooheon’s forehead. He’s been so good at keeping his distance that Wonho hasn’t really touched him since Dallas, not with intent, not with his warm eyes fixed on Jooheon’s face like they are right now. 

“Don’t,” Jooheon practically growls, jerking back hard enough that he bashes his head into Minhyuk’s ear.

Wonho freezes, his eyes wide. “Sorry?” he says quietly, his hand dropping to his side, but it’s almost lost under the annoyed yelp that Minhyuk lets out.

Shownu has managed to flag down a manager and they’re all hustled into the dressing room to hand over their stage clothes, then down into two waiting SUVs. Jooheon is thankfully stuck between Shownu and Hyungwon, who keeps eyeing him warily. 

“What?” Jooheon finally snaps, sure that one of his hyungs is about to read him the riot act about his weird Wonho behavior. 

“You’re going to get me sick,” Hyungwon says balefully, and Jooheon just sighs. 

“I promise I won’t.” 

“You can sleep in with me,” Shownu offers, and Hyungwon groans.

“So it’s Plague Boy or the Great Snoring Monster, excellent choices.” 

“Maybe not, but they are the only choices you’ve got,” Shownu shrugs.

“Fine,” Hyungwon sighs dramatically. “I’ll pick up my bag and my earplugs and let Jooheon plague up a single for the night.” 

Jooheon knows that it’s a gift, to let one of the members who isn’t Shownu get a single room for a night, to get some privacy and some uninterrupted sleep. And maybe time for Jooheon to get all of his Wonho-related jerking off out of the way so he can _move on_. He knocks his shoulder against Hyungwon’s in thanks.

*

 

It might have gone better if the knock on the door had come fifteen minutes earlier, or fifteen minutes later. But it came, unfortunately, right as Jooheon had started peeling his clothes off for a long-overdue shower. A shower in which he will both get clean and also, finally, jerk off to the memory of Wonho’s head tossed back on stage as he laughed, chest bare, pink lips parted. Jooheon is frankly pissed off about how sexy that image is in his head. He has seen quite a bit of well-made pornography that is not as sexy as that image of one of his best friends. Jooheon is very, very much looking forward to his shower.

Instead he’s shirtless and in his bare feet, still grumbling about how managers have the absolute worst timing always, when he swings the door open to see Wonho on the other side, those pretty pink lips parted in surprise. He’s in soft sleep pants and a t-shirt stretched wide at the neck so Jooheon can see his collarbones. “What the actual fuck is happening?” he says before his brain can catch up with his mouth. Wonho’s mouth snaps shut and he flushes. 

“I wanted to talk to you,” Wonho says softly. “Shownu says -”

“I’m _fine_ , hyung,” Jooheon groans, already sick to death of his fake illness. “You don’t have to keep fucking checking up on me.”

“Shownu says,” Wonho keeps talking like Jooheon hadn’t interrupted him, “that you’re just sick and you’re not upset with me, but I feel like you’re upset with me, and I wanted to know if I did something wrong.” He clenches his jaw, a subtle Wonho tell that he’s trying to man up instead of cry.

Well, shit.

Jooheon leans against the doorjam for a moment, swallowing down a scream. It’s only been a few days since he’s had his whole Wonho-based reality turned upside-down, and if they were home maybe he could get away with a little more space, a little more time. But they’re in the middle of tour, and Jooheon has to see him hours and hours of every fucking day, and Wonho is one of his best friends in the world, and he’s making him feel bad. 

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong,” Jooheon sighs. He steps back and opens the door wider, his skin already prickling with embarrassment. Wonho slides past him and Jooheon shuts the door with a click. He turns around and leans on it. Wonho is standing at the foot of one of the two queen beds, his eyes fixed on Jooheon. “I’m not mad at you,” Jooheon tells him. Wonho cuts his gaze to the floor.

“Something’s wrong though,” he says, soft and sure. They can all read each other like books by now after so many years in each other’s back pockets. They know everything - or, no. Clearly they don’t know _everything_ about each other, and maybe that’s some of what’s been making Jooheon crazy this week. Not just figuring out that it was Wonho, but that he hadn’t already _known_. That Wonho had secrets from them.

But that was hypocritical too, wasn’t it? Jooheon had the same secret. Or, close enough. And now that he’s had _that_ thought, Jooheon knows he can’t keep the scales tipped like this. A secret for a secret - the only fair way to move through this mess.

“Yeah, something -” He scrubs his hands over his face and steps into the room, sitting on the edge of the bed. Wonho pauses for a moment before sitting next to him. “I, um. I remembered something, in Houston.” Wonho blinks at him, in confusion. “Like, a memory, from a long time ago. I mean, I always had this memory, but there was part of it I didn’t know? It’s hard to explain.” He’s stalling, he knows that; he can feel his cheeks flush and fervently wishes he was wearing a fucking _shirt_.

“Was it something bad?” Wonho asks softly, his hand reaching out to hover, worried, over Jooheon’s shoulder.

Jooheon’s laugh surprises them both. “No,” he reassures Wonho, and himself, “it wasn’t anything bad.” Wonho’s hand finally lands on Jooheon’s bare skin, hot and heavy, and Jooheon flinches without meaning to. Wonho pulls back immediately, shoulders hunched, both of his hands twisting together in his lap.

“Seems like it was bad,” Wonho says. Jooheon’s head drops as he leans forward, elbows on his knees.

“It wasn’t bad,” he says again, because it wasn’t. It was a secret he’s kept for a long time, but he’s never felt ashamed about it. The opposite really - it’s a memory he uses to remind himself of how brave he can be, how he can go after the things he wants. _Never as brave as the man on the other side_ , he reminds himself. _Never as brave as Wonho._

He takes a deep breath, eyes still fixed on the floor. “You remember back at Starship, in the trainee days, the bathroom down in the basement?” he asks. 

Wonho goes deathly still. Jooheon still can’t look at him.

“Some of the guys told me there was, um. If you went down there at certain times, there was a hole in one of the stalls, and if you went in -” He takes a deep breath. “If you went in, there was a guy and he would -” 

“Who told you?” Wonho breaks in, his voice a tight whisper. 

Jooheon’s heart pounds in his chest. It’s not like he thought Wonho would deny it but… there’s no going back now. He curls his hands into fists, then uncurls them; his breathing is fast and shallow. 

“I didn’t -,” Wonho says. “I can’t -” His voice breaks on a sob and when Jooheon looks up, Wonho is hiding his face behind his hands, tears already seeping through his fingers. Jooheon feels sick to his stomach - he’s doing this all wrong.

“No, Wonho,” he says, soft but urgent, pulling at Wonho’s wrists. “It’s okay. This isn’t -”

“W-who told you?” Wonho’s voice is rough, muffled. Scared.

“No one told me. No one - I was there. I was one of those guys, who went… who was there,” Jooheon replies, his own face burning red. “With you.”

“Oh _god_ ,” Wonho sobs and Jooheon wraps his arm around Wonho’s shoulder and pulls him close until his face is pressed against Jooheon’s shoulder. Jooheon doesn’t care at all about his own shirtlessness anymore, or his own embarrassment. He folds his other hand around the back of Wonho’s neck, presses his cheek to his hair. Wonho is trembling.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” he says. His own throat feels tight and hot. “Hyung - no one else knows, just me. It’s okay.” 

Wonho cries for a long time, and Jooheon just holds him, his own tears getting lost silently in the soft press of Wonho’s hair against his cheek. 

Finally, Wonho’s stuttered breathing starts to even out. He tries to pull away but Jooheon won’t let him, keeping his arm around Wonho until his shoulders slump. He’s leaning nearly his whole weight on Jooheon now and Jooheon gives in to it and lays back on the bed, pulling Wonho down with him. “Hyung,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you.”

Wonho shakes his head against Jooheon’s shoulder. “No, it’s - I’m okay.” He tips his head back. His eyes are red, his cheeks mottled red and pale white. “Just you?” he asks, and Jooheon nods.

“No one else knows. Just me.”

Wonho exhales, a shaky breath ghosting across Jooheon’s skin. “I thought they knew. Back then. When they put up that ‘Out of Order’ sign I thought they’d found out - they had cameras in some places. You remember - it felt like they were always watching.”

Jooheon nods; he remembers.

“So when they closed the bathroom I was sure they knew. And they couldn’t fire me for it because it would be too much of a scandal so they were just waiting for me to screw up. Just waiting -” he pauses as he starts to cry again, and Jooheon rubs a comforting hand up and down his arm. 

“Waited until, what? Until _No Mercy_?” That was over a year after they closed the bathroom. Jooheon can’t imagine Wonho being that scared for that long, and none of them knew a thing.

“Even after.” Wonho tells him. “When debut didn’t go as well as they’d hoped, I just always wondered if they would just send me home one day.”

“If they tried to send you home, they’d have to send us all home,” Jooheon says, pulling Wonho tighter against his side. “You know that right?”

Wonho smiles, small and watery.

“And they’d definitely have to send me home too, since I was in that bathroom with you.” 

The smile falters, and Jooheon feels that hot, sick feeling sneaking back into this stomach. “Yeah,” Wonho says, his gaze skittering across Jooheon’s chest before landing on the wall.   
“I never knew you were one of those guys. I never… I wasn’t good at guessing who they were. It was weird, so I just stopped trying.” Jooheon tries not to think about how many other guys Wonho was with, down in the basement. “You didn’t know it was me until now?” 

“Not until Houston, no.” Jooheon makes himself breathe in-and-out, like he’s doing exercises at the recording studio. “Something happened and it all just… I don’t know. Brains are weird. Before that it was just… a nice memory.”

“I’m glad it was nice,” Wonho says softly.

“I wish it was nicer for you.”

“It was - I mean,” Wonho still won’t look at him, but he shrugs. “I liked it,” he says, his voice almost a whisper by now. “I really… it was good. I wanted to do it.” Jooheon rubs his arm again, tries not to think about the ‘it’ that hangs between them. “You don’t think it was wrong?” he asks.

“No,” Jooheon says, his own eyes fixed on the ceiling. “Even then, I thought it was brave.”

“Oh,” Wonho breathes against his shoulder. Jooheon tilts his head to press their foreheads together. 

“Do you want to sleep here tonight, hyung?” he asks, careful to keep any trace of innuendo out of it. “I thought you might not want to explain -”

“Yes, thank you,” Wonho says quietly. 

They sit up slowly and Jooheon goes into the bathroom to get them both glasses of water. “I, um, still need to shower,” Jooheon says, setting Wonho’s glass on the nightstand. “You take this bed, I’ll take the other one.”

“Okay,” Wonho nods. He’s not quite looking Jooheon in the face, but his color is better. Jooheon reaches out to squeeze his shoulder, then turns and heads back into the bathroom.

He stays in the shower a long time, thinking about that night at Starship and how differently they’ve both carried it around inside them for the last four years. How this thing that kept Jooheon feeling brave and sexy and defiant made Wonho feel the opposite for so long. How much more Wonho deserved.

He’s worried it will be awkward when he comes out of the bathroom, pajamas finally on and his hair still damp. But Wonho is fast asleep under the covers, his empty water glass on the nightstand beside him. Jooheon fights the urge to tuck him in tighter, to brush the hair off his forehead, to kiss the place where his hair falls over his ear. 

He gets in bed and turns out the light.


End file.
